1. Technical Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to context-aware mobile communication devices and systems.
2. Background Information
Communication systems exist that learn about their environments and operating conditions. Mobile communication devices of such systems may communicate information and take other actions in different ways depending on the “context” in which the mobile communication device finds itself. Such communication systems are therefore often referred to as “context-aware” communication systems. To determine what action a mobile communication device should take in a given circumstance, one or more rules are applied using the context information as input variables to the rules. The location of the communication device may be a part of the context and in such a case the mobile communication devices are said to be “location-aware.” The mobile communication devices may be cellular telephones that include buddy lists, where how an incoming call or email is routed depends on numerous aspects of the context including the location of cellular telephone and a buddy list stored in the cellular telephone. Such context-aware systems are generally complex server/client systems of networked devices, where the actions taken by individual client devices typically involve determining how incoming calls and other information will be communicated to and/or displayed to a user of the client device. Despite existence of the general concept of context-aware computing systems that use presence and location information, existing real-world context-aware systems are expensive to implement, cumbersome to use, and fail to solve many problems in common real-world operating situations. Maintaining historical user location information on a server in such a system raises privacy concerns. Reliance on a central server has reliability ramifications. As a result, context-aware systems that use presence and location information have generally been confined to instant messaging systems and location-aware advertising systems.